On the Roof
by J.Turenne
Summary: The best scene of 'Abduction' ; Irina's POV.


On the Roof  
  
A/N- Three updates in two days after a month of silence? That's right, folks. I have been ITCHING to write something from Irina's POV, but have been completely inspiration-less until now. But the scene on the roof, combined with the mad bout of story writing that has seized me today, struck something inside me. Anyway, this is probably going to be a one chapter affair, as I am a notoriously poor updater, but if I see an opportunity for a good place to continue to I will.  
  
Disclaimer- I don't own Syd, Irina, or either of their crazy, mixed up lives. If I did, Irina wouldn't have been such a bitch to Vaughn earlier in the season. Not that I own him, either. Though I wish I did. I'm going to shut up now.  
  
Reviews- Every time I write a story, my plea for reviews gets more frantic. Reviews are water and air, food and shelter. Especially now, with no new episode until January sobs uncontrollably into hands; Realizes that Vaughn isn't there to comfort her and sobs harder. Please, I beg of you, review!!!!!  
  
  
  
I don't know who I am now.  
  
That simple, blinding truth hurts me as much as most of the others combined. Everything that I ever thought I was is dead, and the things that were supposed to be just acting are all I have left.  
  
They are all that I want to have left.  
  
This is the first day in twenty years that I have held my own daughter.  
  
God, my Sydney. I know that it isn't fair to think of her as mine, but I can't help it. She's so strong, so kind, so beautiful, and I love her so much.  
  
I haven't told her that yet. Either of us could die any day now, and I haven't said a word. But if I try too hard, I will lose her, and I couldn't take that.  
  
Because she is the only part of me that I know.  
  
Today, when she walked onto the roof, I thought my heart would break. I knew that she had set this up, that she had gotten me this time out in the fresh air. And I hoped, wildly and beyond my dreams, that she had done it so we could meet without the quarter inch of glass that was miles between us. How rarely, since she was six at least, have I seen her without that glass.  
  
The first time I shot her, and I wished I could shoot myself instead.  
  
The second time was under Jack's watchful eyes, and wished that I could shoot HIM instead.  
  
And the third time was this morning.  
  
I replay the scene in my head.  
  
She walked out of the door, and it suddenly made sense. I had to know for sure that I was right, that she was the one who had done this for me.  
  
"Kendall's allowed me fifteen minutes here, twice a week. You put in the request, didn't you, to give me time out here?" She had seen the cell. She knew the little hell that I was living in. They all knew, but she was the only one who could care enough. At least, I hoped she cared enough.  
  
"Yeah. We appreciated your help in Kashmir." Ah, this is where her parentage shows. Never let anybody see your true motives. She does not get this just from me. Jack uses that tactic just as freely, and with almost as much success as I do. Perhaps with more, in the short term. He just cannot hide for as I can.  
  
But I know her motives, whether she tells them or not. She wants to see me without glass almost as much as I want to see her. But she still doesn't trust me. I have to make her understand, have to make her see. She is my only salvation. And even if I can't tell her yet how much I love her, and how proud I am, I can say it and other words, and she will know. I choose my words as carefully as I can, which means much more in my case than in most.  
  
"I need you to understand... I was eighteen when the KGB recruited me. For a woman to be asked to serve her country, it was a future, it meant...." There are no words. It meant everything. But I do the best I can. "..empowerment, independence." I quietly gauge her reaction, then decide it is time to say what I need to. "I was a fool to think that any ideology could come before my daughter."  
  
I see the tears in her eyes before she turns away and suddenly there are tears in my eyes too. I cannot just let her leave. Not now! I may never get another chance, not in our crazy world. I cannot let her go this time.  
  
"Sydney?"  
  
She turns, and suddenly I am holding her tight, the tears coursing down both our cheeks. I will never leave her go again, I swear to myself. Leaving her, my beautiful, smart, sweet Sydney, was the hardest moment of my life. I will never, ever leave her again.  
  
But I have barely held her for half a moment when the guards start yelling, and the familiar sound of rifles cocking stiffens us both. We back away from each other, still crying, with hurt evident in both of our eyes. Our thoughts, I know, run on parallel courses-"What a fucked up world we live in, when a mother can't hug her own daughter without it being a matter of national security." But neither of us says it; even now, there are many, many things left unspoken between us. Most of these are things that both of us, intelligent as we are, just don't know how to say.  
  
She wipes away her tears, looks up at me and says, "I'll see you soon, Mom."  
  
The name only makes me cry harder; in the last few weeks, I think I have made up for all the tears I haven't shed in the last twenty years. I manage to nod, looking up into her face one last time before she turns and leaves.  
  
Now I am back in this Godforsaken cell. It is still cold, still unforgiving, still foreboding, still empty. But I have been reassured today that I did the right thing coming here. My purpose has been reaffirmed, something that even I, who have learned that being able to wait is the most precious skill, still need sometimes. I am here for the only reasons that matter.  
  
I am here to find out who my daughter is, and I am here to find out who I have become.  
  
  
  
A/N- Should I continue this? If so, should it be more Irina, or the same scene from Sydney's point of view? Review, Please? Please? 


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